My brother is the father of my child: Mary Portas reveals shock decision in bid for family

Mary is all smiles in Good Housekeeping photoshoot

MARY PORTAS has spoken out about her younger brother being the biological father to her third child with wife Melanie Rickey.

 

Mary's partner Melanie gave birth to their three-year-old son in September 2012, thanks to help from Mary's brother Lawrence.

However, although the couple's decision may have surprised some, Queen of Shops Mary is now trying to "normalise" the situation by speaking out, hoping that their decision "will make the world a better place".

Retail guru has opened up about her children

"I'm a gay woman and I have some sort of social responsibility to people who still feel they haven’t a voice," Mary told Good Housekeeping.

"I am a mother, I am a businesswoman, I have children, I have family, I just happen to live with another woman and she had a child who happens to be from my brother," she added.

 

"The more I am able to normalise that the better the world is going to be," she continued.

Mary - who is also mother to 21-year-old son Mylo and 19-year-old daughter Verity - says that the fact that she was orphaned at the age of 16 before becoming a surrogate mother to her brother, just brought them closer together.

"When you suffer a parent's death you stick together like glue. So we were always close. We are family, that is it," she explained.

55-year-old says life changed at 40

In the telling interview, the 55-year-old also admitted that her perception on life changed when she hit 40.

"I ran on fear until I was about 40, I was a very different person from now. I finally realised I didn't have to be the one who is always driving the ship," she told the publication.

"I went away to a place where they just did yoga and I discovered a book by Eckart Tolle called A New Earth: Create A Better Life. I started reading some of his stuff and I just thought, 'Woah. That's the way the world should be.'"

 

Mary with her wife Melanie Rickey

Mary added: "The world is a big place, it will feed you if you put a bit of energy into it. It will give you back. That's what I started to do and I let that fear go.

"Connecting on a much deeper level changes the way you are – it certainly changed me," she finished up by saying.

Read the full Mary Portas interview in the September 2015 issue of Good Housekeeping, on sale now. For further exclusive content, please go to goodhousekeeping.co.uk.